Craig Constantine

As my 10k project plods onward, I’m making good progress. With some renewed motivation to keep knocking out the numbers, I’ve been making a weekly plan and sticking to it for several weeks now. (A big thank you goes out to my “accountability partner”, Clif!)

Through November 22 (day 124 of the year-long challenge) I’ve been doing various numbers of exercises. In particular, I’ve recently been doing a “pull-ups program” designed to get me from being able to only do 2 or 3 lousy pullups, to being able to do a few sets.

The orange cells show [what I call] the “odometer problem”: pushups and squats are close in the 1800 range, but pullups are way behind, with handstand-seconds and bar-to-bar precisions adrift in the midlands. Green cells remind me where I’m changing numbers, and yellow cells are planned; That’s the number of reps I should do — so this screenshot is from before December 3rd.

For the last week of November and the first week of December I’m focusing on brining four of the activities into line. Low reps of pushups, easy squat numbers, and a load of bar pre’s. On Monday the 7th, the blue cells show the four coming together. And, after a bit of fiddling, they will also all pass over the 2,000 reps count in the same workout. (Yeah short term goals! :)

That leaves pullups (the red cell) a wopping 500 reps behind the other four. Going forward from the 7th, I’ll keep the other four activities in lock-step and work as hard as I can (without injuring myself) to crank on that pullups number. If I get the math right, I think I can make all five activities come together AND pass 3,000 in a workout near the end of January.

ɕ

Heading into the holiday season usually means falling off the “activity” wagon in addition to over-eating. Since I’m deep into my 10k project, I’ve been working with my accountability partner ( Hi Clif! :) to map out my training goals. So the idea is to have a plan of exactly what I’m supposed to do on which days. (Plus the other regular stuff I’m doing well with as general habits — parkour class on Sundays, Tracy and I running Tuesday/Thursdays, walking regularly, etc.)

So here’s a glimpse behind the curtain and what happens at my desk nearly every day to keep the planning on track. Here’s my most recent message to Clif where I’m checking in. Below, if you care, I’ll explain a bit more about what’s going on here:

did today’s 10k stuff; no problem
tomorrow is another set of 10k stuff (with a trivial bump of +10 bar precisions) AND the pullup assessment
saturday very busy, heading into Brooklyn and no idea what sunday holds
but sun/mon are planned-clear so I’ll still be on track
still have to decide what I’m doing with pullups starting next week…
I have “50” pencilled in under pullups, and then a regular +5 increase just to see how it plays out for catching up the pullup numbers:

…so there’s a lot happening.

• “10k stuff” refers to the set of 5 exercises (pushups, pullups, body-weight squats, seconds-in-handstand and bar-to-bar precisions) that I’m attempting to do 10,000 repetitions of within one year.
• Rows in the spreadsheet are days. Today was day 129, Friday Nov 27, so that row has “actually did” numbers.
• Weeks start on Mondays. This week has yellow cells on Saturday — that’s “planned” repetitions — and zeros on the cells where I have a day off.
• Daily is the number of reps, Total is the running total number since day one, Remaining is the spreadsheet subtracting from 10,000, and Rate is the spreadsheet computing how many reps I would have to do EVERY SINGLE DAY to the end of the 365 days to make it to 10k.
• RATE is like the ticking clock of death. If that number is creeping UP, things will get harder and harder as I dig a hole of reps that I have to finish in a sprint. Bear in mind that if I injur or overwork some part of me, then I have to take a rest, and the rate just keeps tic tic ticking upward.
• Next week – days 132-138 are sketched out tentatively. When I report in to Clif with an actual plan, the cells will be “locked in” colored yelllow.
• This week (that I’m finishing) and next week are odd: I’m jiggering the reps to pull four of the exercises to matching total counts on Monday, day 139. I’ve been tinkering for weeks so that they all align AND pass over 2,000 reps in the same workout. Just a fun short-term motivational thing.That’s why tomorrow, bar pre’s goes up to 70 and then down to 40 next week.
• Pullups are my weakest activity. For the last 24 days, I’ve run twice through a 12-day “pullup increase program”. I started with a max possible of 3 [crappy] pullups, and now I’m up to 5 easy, clean pullups, with a 6th and 7th available to max out. So you can see the problem: The “rate” under pullups says about 38, meaning I have to about 80 pullups every other day to make the pace. But if I can only do little sets of 3 or 4, then doing 80 takes like an hour. So I’ve been focusing on the pullup program so I can get up to some real rep numbers. (Every pullup that I do as part of the program I mark down though.) Saturday (tomorrow!) is the assessment day at the end of the second cycle through the pullup program. When I see what I have for a number, I’ll decide if I’m going to just go back to doing small-number sets (what the spreadsheet has pencilled in as 50, 55, 60 etc) or if I’m running the pullup program a third time.

ɕ